What is phonetics?

Website design By BotEap.comPhonetics derives from the Roman text ‘The Littera doctrine which states that a letter (littera) consists of a sound (potestas), a written symbol (figure) and a name (nomen). This forms the backbone of traditional phonetics. Phonics is a way of teaching students to read and write a language. It involves teaching how to connect the sounds of spoken English with letters from groups of letters and how to combine letters and sounds to read words.

Website design By BotEap.comPhonics is a widely used system for teaching reading in the English-speaking world. The teacher should teach students phonic rules and patterns on how to decode words. Although the patterns are inconsistent in some cases, 75% of the rules are reliable.

Website design By BotEap.comPhonic Patterns – Vowels a. The short vowels are the five letters a,e,i,o,u and produce the sounds a as in cat, o as in hot, u as in cup, e as in bet, i as in sit.

Website design By BotEap.comb. Long vowels are pronounced as in the names of the letters of those vowels; The a in baby, the e in metro, the i in tiny, the o in broken, the u in humor.

Website design By BotEap.comagainst Schwa is a confused vowel sound as in the word lesson where the ‘o’ says uh. It is not always taught as a separate phonic principle, but some educators feel that it should be, as it is such an important part of the English language.

Website design By BotEap.comd. Diphthongs are two adjacent vowel sounds that occur within the same syllable. For example boy, cow, eye.

Website design By BotEap.commy. Vowel digraphs are spelling patterns in which two letters are used to represent the vowel sound, such as ai in sail, oo in tool.

Website design By BotEap.comF. The vowel consonant followed by e makes the long letter sound. For example, a like baking, i like walk, o like cone, e like theme, u like cute.

Website design By BotEap.comgram. R-controlled vowels are those in which the letter of the vowel followed by an R has a different sound than its regular pattern. Examples are, car, horn, she, bird, and burn.

Website design By BotEap.comH. The syllable ‘le’ at the end of words is silent, as in the word ‘little’.

Website design By BotEap.comConsonant Phoneme Patterns Consonant digraphs are spellings in which two letters are used to represent a phoneme or consonant sound, such as ch, sh, ph. The letter combinations for wr and kn are also consonant digraphs, although they are often called silent letters.

Website design By BotEap.comDue to the complexity of the English language, there is much debate as to whether or not phonics should be taught to beginning readers or if it should be taught at all.

Website design By BotEap.comResearch shows that phonics instruction improves children’s ability to identify words. Studies in the US and the UK have shown that phonics is an effective method of teaching reading early on and for all children who have reading difficulties. Phonics also benefits all ages in learning to spell.

Website design By BotEap.com‘Simple Phonics’ is an easy to follow eBook written by a teacher and a parent that will show you how to teach your child phonics. It shows you that phonics and teaching reading isn’t rocket science and gives you the confidence to teach your child yourself.